Siesta vouchers

With the economic downturn of 2001 and its resultant layoffs, expect companies to control costs by curtailing benefits for remaining employees (or adding no-cost/low-cost "benefits" to prop up morale). The Siesta Voucher program would Increase Efficiency and Productivity by serving several functions at once:

(1) Utilize newly empty offices as temporary dorm space.

(2) Give employees something really worthwhile to work for: 2- to 4-hour naps (Graham crackers and milk provided on birthdays).

(3) Make a gesture of cross-cultural friendship by reviving the highly civilized Mexican tradition of the universal midafternoon nap.

(4) Appease beancounters and conservative policy wonks by restricting the nap to only those workers who "earn" permission coupons for it.

(5) Give compulsive overworkers a place to sleep so they don't *have* to go home (and can still come to work after fed-up spouses throw them out).

(6) Reduce employee complaints of how their colleagues' "thousand-yard stare" makes them too nervous to work.